1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a self-facing merchandise pusher system for use in retail stores.
2. Description of Related Art
Many types of products in a retail store are merchandised on shelves and can be pushed to the front of the shelf, toward the aisle, by a spring-urged pusher system that attaches to or is placed on the shelf. The pushing function serves to keep the product xe2x80x9cfront facedxe2x80x9d at the front shelf edge so that the product is easier for the consumer to see, presents an organized, neater appearance, and makes restocking of the product easier for store personnel. Certain types of product packages, particularly tall, skinny packages, such as toothbrushes, are good candidates for a spring-urged pushing system because these products do not stand up well and require both restraining means and pushers so that the product can be effectively merchandised.
Known merchandising pusher systems, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,320 to David and U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,563 to Yablans, include a segregated horizontal space, usually separated by product dividers, and a pusher between the dividers. The pushing surface on the pusher is generally a rigid vertical plane urged forward by a single spring. Typically, the pushing surface is oriented in a parallel manner to a fixed product retainer that resides at the front of the system, thereby keeping pushed product from spilling from the system. When merchandising certain products, such as toothbrushes, for example, the products are often sold in packaging that is a multiple of the width of the smallest single product. Consequently, in a retail store, it may be necessary to display many of each of several widths of product. As a result, a pusher system must accommodate these package widths and be flexible enough to allow changing of the positions of these products on the shelf without having to obtain and install different pusher components and without occupy ing a significant amount of time by store personnel. Currently, all known merchandise pusher systems are either limited to one package width or require additional components to be installed for other package sizes, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,409,027 to Chang et al. The present invention is directed at overcoming these and other known problems.
The present invention is directed to a self-facing merchandise pusher system for use in displaying and dispensing product in retail stores. The invention incorporates biased pushers that are used to urge product toward the front edge of the retail shelf. The width of the pusher corresponds generally to the width of the narrowest product to be pushed. A removable divider extends vertically between each pusher. When pushing products of varying widths or multiples of the width of the narrowest product, dividers may be removed to create a larger pushing surface. Removing a divider causes a mechanism to interlock with an adjacent pusher thereby locking the two adjacent pushers together. Once interlocked, the adjacent pushers move in unison to urge larger width product toward the front edge of the retail shelf and also do not allow product to slip between the interlocked pushers. Likewise, replacing the divider causes the interlocking mechanism to retract from the adjacent pusher thereby unlocking the previously locked adjacent pushers and creating two independently movable pushers to dispense product.